Contents
About the Instructor
Dr. Todd Dewett is a leading speaker, writer, and coach in the leadership and life skills space.
Dr. Dewett is one of the world’s most powerful voices in the leadership and life skills space. As a professional speaker, he inspires. As a writer, he educates. As a coach, he transforms. After beginning his career with Andersen Consulting and Ernst & Young, Todd served for ten years as a decorated professor of management, until speaking and writing became full-time pursuits. He is a TEDx speaker, Inc. magazine top 100 leadership speaker, and two-time #1 most viewed author at Lynda.com. His latest book is Show Your Ink: Stories about Leadership and Life. His unique take on leadership has resulted in quotes in the New York Times, BusinessWeek, Forbes, TIME, and hundreds of other outlets. Visit his home online at www.drdewett.com.
{click here for Exercise Files}
Introduction
Welcome
– You’ve just begun a new management position. Let me guess, you’re likely excited and a little nervous, right? That’s completely normal, so please allow me to put your decision in perspective. Have you ever heard someone say that leaders are born, not made? That is absolutely incorrect. The good news is that leadership is best viewed as a set of skills. With a little thoughtful preparation it’s a set of skills you can learn. I’ll start by helping you understand how to immediately establish yourself as a leader and how to begin setting goals and expectations. Next we’ll cover topics including building rapport with the team, and what it means to earn trust and show respect.
I’ll also address several useful communication tips that will help you better connect with the team. Overall, I’m gonna challenge you to become more than simply the new boss. I wanna help you be an authentic leader. When you’ve completed this course, you’ll be ready to hit the ground running with the knowledge you need to successfully complete the first few months in your new role. Let’s get started.
Becoming a leader
To many new leaders, leadership seems mysterious, as if what makes a successful leader is somehow intangible or un-definable. It’s not. Mountains of social science tells us that leadership is a set of skills. Skills are behaviors anyone can learn with the right effort. Any nerves or apprehensions you may be experiencing right now will eventually fade as you ramp up the learning curve and begin to build and polish your leadership skills. In order to prepare you for what is to come, please know that what got you here won’t work anymore. The technical and functional job skills that earned you past accolades and positive attention are not the same skills that will enable you to be a successful leader of a team.
If you’re a great accountant, it does not follow that you will be a great leader of accountants.Similarly, just because you are a world class engineer, that doesn’t mean you’ll immediately be world class at leading a team of engineers. Leadership is a series of people- related skills that help you facilitate the work of others. It’s not about doing the work per se anymore. Your new job is to help, facilitate, structure, and plan the work of others. Now might be a good time to address a very old question. What is the difference between a manager and a leader? For years, scholars and practitioners alike have suggested the two are very different.
Using the exercise files
We’ve provided free exercise files that are available to all lynda.com members to help you get the most from this course. These files include an outline of the course that is very useful for taking notes. I suggest that you download this file and print it out prior to watching the course.Now let’s get started.
Surviving the First Month
Establishing your identity as a manager
In the first month, your goal is to set the tone by focusing on three main activities. These are learning to look like a leader, developing professional relationships, and staying visible. Okay, let’s talk about what it means to look like a leader. There’s no correct look for a leader, what is correct is defined by the norms of your organization. Your goal is to seek to understand the prevailing dress code and grooming norms in your organization. Look at other managers and how they’re presenting themselves. Your goal is to be reasonably close to those expectations.One word of caution, try not to make drastic changes in your wardrobe now that you’ve been promoted.
If you were wearing blue jeans one week ago and an expensive suit and tie this week, people might find that odd or somewhat inauthentic. Make small moves towards the norms you’ve identified. The goal is not to standout, but to fit in, in a manner that’s appropriate given your new role and responsibilities. Next, I’d like to share an interesting idea. One that some feel is a little difficult. Your goal as the new boss is not to be friends with your employees; your goal is to develop positive and personal performance related relationships. Friend relationships are all about personal bonds and interactions, friends very often find it difficult to deliver tough feedback because friend relationships don’t have a performance component, and at work, in your new role as a leader, your biggest concern is performance.
Of course, you should care about helping individuals grow and improve, but your overriding obligation is to the group, even more than any one individual. Here’s the good news, productive professional relationships like friendships can and should be personal. The difference is about proportion, friendships are dominated by personal exchanges, such as conversations about family members and hobbies. Professional relationships are dominated by performance related exchanges concerning the work at hand.
For example, talking about who to hire and how to change your process. There’s one final issue I’d like you to consider for your first month, it’s the need to stay visible. Being visible means that most of the time, most of your employees see you or know where you are and what you’re working on. The higher your visibility, the more people will feel connected to you andexperience motivation to accomplish their work successfully. True, the larger the group, the more difficult it becomes to remain visible. Having said that, work hard to allocate at least 5-10% of your day, everyday to informally chatting with your team.
Don’t schedule that time and don’t call them into your office, take the initiative to walk around and find people where they work. Simply say hello, ask how things are going, and ask what, if anything, you can do to help, and don’t forget, when you can’t spend time with everyone, you can still connect using technology. For example, you might use a weekly voicemail or an email blast to the entire team. This allows you to keep them in the loop. Highlight great work accomplishments within the team, and importantly, to celebrate significant personal events, such as weddings or graduations.
Staying connected does not have to be massively time consuming or complex. Genuine conversations start while you’re walking around. Simple weekly messages such as the one I just described can work wonders for team camaraderie and productivity. That’s it, three smart ways to start your new role successfully, know what it means to look like a leader, spend time building and cultivating positive professional relationships, and remember to stay visible.
Clarifying performance expectations
Let’s start with what’s expected of you, which is all about building rapport with your boss and your team. First, clarify your boss’ expectations of you. You want to make sure you’re both on the same page in terms of his or her expectations for the overall performance of your team.Don’t leave any room for ambiguity on this topic. Next, you need to understand your boss’ bigger picture. What are their main goals beyond the performance of your specific team? Your manager has many priorities, you are only one of them. Understanding this will have a strong influence on decision-making within your team.
In addition, talk with your boss about initial changes you believe are required in terms of the personnel on your team. Even if you don’t receive the immediate solution you desire, you’ll have planted the necessary seed for the future. Finally, request the resource improvements that you need. If your team’s performance depends on any particular resource improvements,whether that’s new computers or other tools, speak up. After covering these topics with your boss, you’re ready to meet the team to set goals and discuss group norms.
In your initial meeting, be clear about the team’s performance in the past, today, and in the future. You want to recognize recent accomplishments and milestones that preceded you.Share the main goals for the next performance period and any thoughts you wish to add about long-term performance goals. Sometimes, goals are dictated in a very structured manner. For example, in many sales organizations, a salesperson is simply handed a number to achieve.However, to the extent possible, try to build a collaborative dialogue around goal setting.
This is more motivational than merely dictating goals. After discussing goals, next, ensure goal clarity by talking about the major milestones to be accomplished in support of each goal.Determine exactly who’s responsible on the team for each milestone. One more useful tip, schedule personal one-on-one follow ups to ensure you have strong goal agreement and clarity. Next, have the group define team norms. Norms are informal rules the group adopts in support of productive behaviors.
Norms have been shown to be more effective than formal rules and regulations in terms of guiding behaviors at work. Defining your norms is up to you and the group. There is no perfect set of norms. However, consider discussing these popular norms, often associated with high performing teams. Being positive and respectful, showing up on time, and being prepared. The norms become your frame of reference when the group reflects on its interactions and decision-making.
After agreeing on norms, be sure to write them down, then distribute them to all group members. Most importantly, make sure the norms are posted visually in one or more relevant places. Also, don’t forget, norms must be enforced to have power and this doesn’t have to be a negative event. It can even be funny. For example, when someone’s late to a meeting, they have to contribute a dollar to the office coffee fund. Getting a grip on performance doesn’t have to be complex.
Start by clarifying expectations with your boss, then focus on your team and nail the goals and the norms required to make you successful.
Feeding your learning curve
Here’s a simple truth. When you step into a leadership role, it’s guaranteed you will work morehours than the average employee. That’s never so true as during the first few months of a new leadership role. Let me offer a comment about simply surviving and maintaining balance or atleast rapport an understanding with your closest friends and family members. Leadership roles are very demanding and can put a strain on family time and personal time. Compared to the typical employee, you’ll inevitably work a few nights and weekends. Become a proactive communicator about these topics.
Make sure your friends, your spouse or partner, and your children have clear expectations about your professional role and its demands on your time. Strive to schedule specific time to engage in activities with your loved ones and work hard to ensure those activities represent high quality time together. The more successful you become and the more you receive promotions in the future, the more necessary it will become to focus on the quality of thoseinteractions, more than just quantity.
As I’ve stated before, the skills and knowledge that helped you earn your promotion are not the same skills and knowledge that will make you successful moving forward. Now, you need to build new leadership skills, as well as a bigger knowledge of the business. Let’s consider several possible sources that can help you feed your learning curve. The first step to building your new leadership skills is to identify several great resources. One useful habit to form immediately is to start bringing relevant learning materials with you wherever you go, whether it’s a book or an app on your phone.
In the area of leadership and organizational life, you’ll find many useful and engaging books, articles, blogs, apps, and podcasts covering every aspect of leadership, not to mention the videos you’re watching right now. Start using them whenever you find even a few minutes of downtime. Next, commit to relevant leadership-related training. Training might be online or in a classroom setting and it might be provided by your organization or you might consider proactively purchasing training in the market.
Training topics, run the gamut. From soft side leadership-related skills to hard side functional training relevant to your industry. Collaborate with your manager and choose what’s right for you. Building your professional network is another great way to gain leadership skills.Networking refers to active attempts to increase the quantity and quality of professionals with whom you are connected, particularly inside the organization. Starting right now, I want you to consider lunches, coffee breaks, or any form of downtime at work as an opportunity to build or strengthen your professional relationships.
A robust network keeps you in the know and accelerates your learning. Your new role also requires you to spend time learning more about the business. You need to understand the basic duties and responsibilities of all roles in the group. How information and work products flow into the group, and how the work moves downstream towards the customer after your group has completed its work. To accomplish this, you have many sources inside the organization to study, such as organizational charts and process manuals.
These collectively define our standard operating procedures or simply put the way we do things around here. You have a lot to learn, try not to look at these action items as discreet events, do what all great leaders do and get focused on continuous learning.
Connecting With the Team
Building initial rapport
Great rapport is about comfortable positive interactions that support the production of quality work. Building rapport isn’t complex or mysterious. While it’s true that as a leader, you must project confidence and competence, building rapport is really about you understanding and appreciating each of your team members. Establishing rapport requires positive conversations about the tasks at hand, but it also requires a little personal conversation. I want you to remember to not talk about work issues 100% of the time. To build great relationships, you have to let them get to know you as a person.
Use a small portion of time; say 5-10% discussing appropriate personal issues so they can get to know you as a human and not just as a boss. Don’t completely separate work life and home life. You should feel comfortable sharing a little about who you are away from the office. For example, your biggest hobby, your favorite sports team, or maybe little facts about your family.Next, I want you to become aware of one of the most interesting decision-making challenges we all face, it’s called projecting.
Projecting is when you think others think like you think about a particular issue. It’s a quick unconscious assumption that’s rarely accurate and can get you in trouble with the team in a hurry. Avoid projecting when you’re talking to your team, whether you’re talking about small issues or big issues, try not to assume their preferences identically match yours. For example, ask, where would you like to go to lunch, or what do you think about this potential hire?Ultimately, you might make decisions that your team won’t always agree with, but when they feel they’ve been heard and understood, they’ll accept your decision better.
Now just as you needed to share a little bit of information that’s personal about yourself to build rapport, you also want to strive to discover personal aspects of each team member. Get to know each member of your team personally. Strive to see them as unique individuals. Listen carefully to what they say and look at how they dress and interact. Check out the pictures and other decorations in their workspace. You’ll begin to see more than just a person who’s technically competent. Building rapport really is about seeing them as vibrant individuals and not merely as human resources.
One final aspect of building rapport involves different ways you can show respect for your team, through brief comments, written notes, phone messages, texts, or in person, there are many opportunities to demonstrate gratitude. Let’s be specific, you can show appreciation for the efforts they expend, the outcomes and milestones they achieve, and for the expertise they possess. Often, employees don’t believe that their boss fully understands their job. In response, give them opportunities to demonstrate their expertise.
Of course, it must be sincere, but it can be as simple as asking someone to explain a task or a process to others. By acknowledging their skills and abilities, you’re highlighting the importanceof having them on the team, you’re demonstrating respect. Having rapport, that sense of comfortable positive interaction is one of the hallmarks of a high performing team. You can experience strong rapport, if you’ll be professional with your team and a little personal. Stop projecting when it’s time to make decisions. Get to know them as unique people and find a few creative ways to show respect.
Explaining your decision-making style
There are many approaches to decision-making. I’m going to discuss the three most basic approaches. While you’re listening, I want you to think about which one best defines you. Keep in mind, there is no perfect approach to decision-making; there are always different possible approaches. The three most basic forms of decision-making are: Autocratic, Collaborative, and Democratic. Autocratic decision-making is defined by you making a decision with no inputneeded from the team, followed by telling the team your decision. Collaborative decision-making involves a partnership or a collaboration between you and the members of the team.
You will ultimately make the decision, but first you wish to seek input from the team. Finally, democratic decision-making involves you allowing the team to make the decision irrespective of what you feel the decision should be. Of course, over time all of us use a mix of these approaches. However, research does suggest the best overall decision is to rely significantly on the collaborative approach with much lighter use of both the autocratic or the democratic approaches. Before you first formally meet with the team, be prepared to discuss your approach to decision-making.
You might even choose to use some of the specific labels we’ve been discussing. No matter which path you choose for a given decision, remember that all great decisions should be followed by great explanations. Explanations are your attempt to offer honest and specific clarification for the decisions you make. Over time, your team will not enjoy every decision you’ll make. Sometimes certain people will like your decision and others will not. In any case, your goal is to offer clarity as to why you did what you did. Even when someone doesn’t like your decision, good explanations make the decision seem more just and acceptable.
Explanations make your process transparent, which shows you to be honest and trustworthy.When you lack transparency and don’t offer quality explanations, your team is left to dream up their own explanations for your behaviors. I’d like to focus for just a moment on one specific aspect of decision-making; making decisions that you know others will not like. For example, you might have to tell someone that the team will not get the budget increase they expected, or that there will be no raises this year, or that someone did not receive the promotion they desired.
Here your objective is to clearly own your decisions. Many times, due to the tension in the situation decision-makers will blame others instead of properly owning the decision. They might say this decision came from above me or I’m sorry but management won’t allow that right now, or some other way to take the blame off of themselves. Avoid blame; your goal is to always provide a clear and honest explanation. The more difficult it is to tell someone the decision you made, the more this is true. The good news is that when difficult feedback is given to a team member, if it is delivered with sincerity and if you own your decision, they will still respect you.
Remember, great decision-making starts with understanding your style and making sure your team understands it too.
Breaking the status bubble
When you’re promoted to a new level in your career, you have to be sensitive to your new status. Status at work is tricky. On the one hand, you can’t physically see it, on the other hand it’s real and people react very strongly to it. I’d like to refer to is as the status bubble. You’re status surrounds you and often makes it more challenging to interact with you. For the context of this video, I’d like you to concentrate on the relationship between you and your team. Now that you’ve been promoted, believe me, even if you feel like the same person, to them you’ve changed. You’ve assumed a higher status.
Like it or not, your promotion removes you from them and some will now view communicating and relating to you as more challenging compared to before you were promoted. The mere fact that you’re now the boss often makes them hesitate more and censor more for fear of not meeting your expectations or not pleasing you. Even if you’re the nicest person in the world, that is the affect of status. Your job is to attack the status bubble. Consider these tactics. First, don’t allow your new status to become the elephant in the room.
Openly discuss it with your team at least once. Tell them you’re excited about the new role and that just because you’ve been promoted, they shouldn’t hesitate to speak up and talk with you whenever they feel it’s necessary. Next, occasionally seek feedback about how you’re doing.Your new role will require you to give them feedback, both formally through the employee evaluation process and informally through daily conversations. To reduce the status bubble, show that you want to know what they think about you as the new boss.
Once in a while, ask for their thoughts and be kind and receptive in response. Listen carefully and offer a genuine thank you. Another great tactic is self-deprecating humor. To appear human and approachable, few things work as well as making fun of yourself. Think about the errors you’ve made at work. The unexpected embarrassing moments in your life, or something silly you once did. Find the right time every two or three months to share one of these incidents with the team. When you show that you’re comfortable laughing at yourself, you becomeimmensely more approachable.
Building bonds with your team isn’t always about humor. In fact, sometimes it’s just the opposite. One, surefire way to break this status bubble is to encourage debate. Many times, whether informal meetings or informal discussions, lower status employees choose to not speak up when they disagree or wish to add another thought. They often precede speaking up as a risk. Your goal is to reduce the perception of risk by positively embracing difficult, but well-intentioned discussion.
When the team sees you honestly listen and positively respond in the face of criticism or debate, they will view you as fair. As a result, you will have increased the odds of pulling more people into the conversation. One last comment, you can break the status bubble by showing genuine gratitude. It’s often been said that the two most important words in business are thank and you. A thoughtful thank you comment or thank you note, when both earned and deliveredsincerely can be a powerful relationship builder.
Your new role comes with a heightened status, but it doesn’t have to cause unnecessary problems. Breaking the status bubble is about removing barriers to communication so that you can have the robust dialogue that creates great teams.
Building Trust
Signaling fairness and integrity
In a professional context, integrity is the quality of having and using, clear and meaningful ethical standards. Being fair at work is one general way to demonstrate your integrity. However, it is important to be very clear about what we mean by the word fair. Being fair refers to equal opportunity, not equal distribution of outcomes and resources. Stated differently, being fair means you treat people the same by creating a positive and transparent workplace, but you also treat them differently based on their performance and their needs.
Integrity and fairness matter, because they impact trust; one of the key qualities present in higher performing teams is trust. It’s one of the intangible assets that helps move a team past mere compliance towards deep commitment, commitment to each other and to the work.Because trust is so important, always remember these two things. First, trust takes a lot of time to build, but can be lost in an instant. Protect it, like the important asset it is. Second, actions speak louder than words.
You don’t have to tell people you are trustworthy when you spend your time showing behaviors that demonstrate trustworthiness. Remember to live by the old saying, walk the talk. When you espouse certain standards and expectations, you build trust by doing what you say. Speaking of behaviors, there are several behaviors at work that are particularly influential in determining whether or not people view you as a person of integrity. For example, openly address integrity as a core part of your team. This requires you to be consistent and clear about your ethical standards and your expectations of the team.
You can show the team that you mean it by challenging any issue or decision that encourages dishonesty or rewards unethical behavior. One of the best ways to demonstrate integrity is to share credit widely. Anytime you and the team pass a particular milestone, reach a big goal, orreceive recognition, don’t steal the spotlight for yourself. Be sure to acknowledge everyone’s contributions and make the team feel included in the win. It’s also important to understand when to share the pain. When I say pain, I’m referring to challenges and difficulties that are not avoidable.
These might include layoffs, lack of pay raises, undesirable travel, or other types of challenges.The rule here is always the same, to the extent possible, you share in the burden you are asking the team to undertake. For example, if they will not receive any raises this year, it would not be wise for you to accept a raise this year either. Another great way to demonstrate integrity is to make decisions based on the merits and not based on any other non-meritorious standard.
In particular, be sure to steer clear of favoritism, which is a way of making decisions in a manner that benefits only your favorite people at work. Assign work based on the skills people have, not simply on how much you like them. One final great way to demonstrate integrity is to be willing to get your hands dirty. Whenever you ask the team to achieve a very difficult standard or to engage abnormal work, such as working on a weekend, you should be the first to sign upand participate arm-in-arm with your team.
To build a track record of success as a leader, few things are as vital as strong integrity. When the team trusts you, they’ll listen better and they’ll perform at a higher level.
Becoming a servant leader
Until recent years, the common understanding of leadership might be described as mechanical and structured, maybe even cold. It involved things such as providing resources, setting goals, and measuring performance. These are still basic parts of leadership and organizational life. But today, we’ve evolved our thinking further to include a more progressive and compassionate understanding of how interpersonal relationships affect productivity. No longer are employees thought of as simple human resources to whom orders should be provided. Now, we recognize that employees are our colleagues and collaborators, our partners with whom and through whom progress is achieved.
One of the most popular paradigms within this evolved view of leadership is servant leadership.Servant leadership is squarely focused on the need to build and develop your employees as your first priority. Servant leadership is predicated on the idea that helping others succeed, in and of itself, is a righteous goal. It’s the right thing to do. Of course, as a great byproduct, when you work hard to maximize the growth of your employees, your team becomes more successful and thus, you become more successful. To become a successful servant leader, I want you to focus on these five particular behaviors that will guide you as you develop: committing to employee development, developing self awareness, listening effectively, feeling empathy, and promoting healing.
Let’s quickly consider each one. The first is a strong commitment to the growth of the people around you. This is the hallmark of servant leadership. You must have a sincere conviction to develop others based on a belief that people have an intrinsic value beyond their contributions as workers. That is why ultimately you seek to support your employees’ professional and personal growth. How do you do that? It all starts with self-awareness. A servant leader understands their personal strengths and weaknesses.
It’s from a base of solid self- awareness that all of the other behaviors I will mention in a moment become possible. You will begin to build self-awareness when you spend time in honest reflection about your work and your work relationships. It also helps to seek out and utilize a few sources of candid expert feedback, for example, a coach or a mentor. Next is listening. Any successful leader must be a strong communicator which always includes stronglistening skills. However, many leaders err problematically on speaking far more than listening.
The servant leader knows that he or she will maximize the outcome of any conversation by listening liberally. This allows you to fully understand others’ positions. It also allows you to seriously consider body language, which often indicates things that remain unspoken. Now let’s consider empathy. A skill that is very important, though often considered more difficult to build.Empathy is the capacity to recognize emotions in others, which then allows us to feel some amount of compassion, caring, or concern in response.
Being able to empathize with someone is partially driven by your personality, but it is also recognized as a skill that can be built through increased self-awareness. When you make empathizing with others a genuine focus, it won’t be long before you start to understand them better. Another vital component of servant leadership is the ability to facilitate healing. Even great teams experience plenty of conflict. The difference is that great teams have the ability to heal wounds by laughing at themselves and making apologies when needed.
When you model selfless behaviors, make your communication positive, and admit when you’re wrong, you can turn conflict into a positive event that makes the team better. In the end, servant leadership is practical, through your focus on developing others, ultimately, you’re building a stronger team.
Increasing your authenticity
If you think about what it means to project to others that you are a leader, you think of projecting competence and confidence. These are great characteristics. You project confidence through your words and all of your non-verbal behaviors, such as eye contact and tone of voice. You project competence, ultimately, through the work outcomes you produce. However, it’s vital you understand that most successful leaders, that is the ones who create the strongest teams, are not merely confident and competent. They are also real, raw, somewhat unfiltered, what many refer to as authentic. To be authentic means to be open, to show your humanity, to maintain flexibility, to be humble, and to always model the way.
These are the characteristics that allow your confidence and competence to have maximum impact. I’ll admit that some view these behaviors as slightly risky, as if they somehow indicate a lack of strength. That’s not accurate. In fact, it’s just the opposite. So, let’s briefly consider each behavior. To begin, remember to remain open as a decision-maker. Recall the three major approaches to decision-making: Autocratic, Collaborative, and Democratic.
Autocratic is one-way, you are giving directions. Collaborative is a two-way dialogue, you receive input and then make the call. Finally, democratic is purely driven by the employees, not you. The point here is simple but powerful. Compared to the typical professional, an authentic leader is more careful to err on liberal use of the collaborative approach and to a lesser extent, a democratic approach. The authentic leader also understands what it means to be human.Here, I’m referring to those things about us that indicate ways we are all imperfect.
In order for your team to see you as a complete human, they need to know more about you than all of your successes. Think of your past professional mistakes, failures, and learning moments. A few times each year, find an appropriate time to share one or more of those with the team. This will make everyone on the team see you as more real. It also makes them more willing to engage the process of professional growth. An authentic leader is also flexible.
Just because you have the authority to make decisions, doesn’t mean you always have to be right. Most of the time, you will find it advantageous to stick to your guns when you make a decision. However, it’s very useful a minority of the time, to relinquish your position and allow others to speak up. When done only on occasion, this helps you be seen as fair and reasonable as a teammate, just as much as a competent boss. Next, let’s consider the issue of humility.Humility refers to an aspect of intelligence which keeps us from thinking too highly or too often about ourselves.
It helps us maintain a bit of modesty by keeping us focused on how much we have yet to learn.You can be very bright and very accomplished, but without humility, you risk being viewed as arrogant or conceited. You can demonstrate humility by asking questions to reveal to others what you don’t yet know. Another way to show humility is by promoting your employees to others more than you promote yourself. Finally, you can demonstrate humility by looking for opportunities to share authority even when you don’t have to.
Here’s one last characteristic of an authentic leader. They consistently model the way. They do not merely espouse useful standards of behavior or performance, they demonstrate them effectively everyday. Consistently matching your behaviors to your values and standards makes you real and human. Confidence and competence are great, but the best leaders are truly authentic.
Communicating Effectively
Communicating proactively
Effective communication is proactive. To be proactive refers to ways you can help your audience hear you and make sure you hear them. Yes, what you actually say to someone matters a lot, but what you say is only one variable that determines how effective your message will be.Stated differently, it’s not always what you say, but when you say it and how you say it. Let’s consider several different tactics to help you communicate proactively. First, let’s think about timing. Everyday, professionals are pressed up against deadlines and a seemingly never ending list of tasks to be completed.
Combine that with our level of efficiency and we often communicate too little with others. What I want you to remember is that Benjamin Franklin was correct, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Being proactive, matters. So let’s break it down. What does being a proactive communicator mean? When you’re speaking with someone, look for important nonverbal cues.Be careful to watch the eyes and the forehead for any signs of confusion or disagreement.When you see them, finish your point, pause, and ask them if they’re still with you. Now, if the look of confusion was strong, don’t accept a simple yes but ask them to summarize or reiterate your main point so you can both be sure you’re on the same page.
Another great proactive tactic is to ask questions. This works equally well one-on- one or in small group settings. You can’t assume that everyone clearly understands you. Once or twice while speaking, ask the person or team members if they have any questions. Try it again when you finish making your last point. By asking for questions, you’ll build enough comfort in the interaction to encourage people to speak up on their own. One important aspect of being proactive is asking people to clarify.
When you’re not following what the speaker is saying or you sense the group isn’t following along either, speak up. Don’t interrupt, but don’t miss your chance to speak up at the right time. Remember, an ounce of prevention will save you a lot of headaches later. The last aspect of being proactive involves predicting challenges before they arise. I know you’re busy, but there’s a small number of conversations you have everyday that are so important, you should prepare for them. Before entering a one-on-one conversation or a meeting, try to identify the one or two issues that are hot button issues.
Issues others will wish to debate or will feel are difficult or challenging. Never let them surprise you. Be ready to address those most difficult aspects if you wish to address the topic at all. That is proactive. Finally, let’s briefly consider the role of Candor versus Civility. Civility means to be nice, positive, and congenial. Candor refers to straightforward, candid, and sometimes blunt conversation. Both are important aspects of interpersonal communication. Civility is vital, but candor is even more important.
Too much civility is often used in order to avoid hurting others’ feelings. What is even more important is complete clarity about the topic at hand and everyone’s perspective about that topic. That’s candor. Give everyone the best chance possible to understand you. When you communicate with others, remember, use the techniques we’ve just discussed and be proactive.
Understanding communication options
You communicate many messages everyday and each one has a different level of importance.For any given message, first, ask yourself, how important is this message? The more important the message, the more you must work to ensure it’s understood properly. Your second task is to choose the best communication option. Is it telephone, teleconference, instant message?Here’s a great rule of thumb, when in doubt, choose the highest quality option. If you don’t choose the highest quality option, you’re asking to be misunderstood. Today we have more communication options than ever before, thanks to the evolution of technology.
Every communication option represents a trade-off between efficiency, how fast communication takes place, and effectiveness, how fully your message is received. For example, consider these classics, written memos or reports. Compared to modern technologies, they are much slower to distribute, though they do provide a tangible record of communication.Similarly, email provides a record and it’s very fast and efficient. As opposed to texting or using an instant message, email affords you the opportunity to craft longer messages and to attach any relevant documents. Email today remains very popular, though it’s overused, if not abused on a regular basis.
There are two main reasons we misuse email all the time. First, we use email as a way to avoid conflict. Instead of speaking to people about difficult situations, we often hide behind our computers. The second main reason we abuse email is because we wish to formally documentall of our communications. As a result, many conversations that should have been, for example, face-to-face or on the telephone, are relegated to email. Here’s my advice, you use email when higher quality options aren’t available.
Further, if you’re feeling emotional about a difficult situation, don’t be in a rush to hit the Send button. Be a thoughtful editor or let the message sit in your Draft Folder for an hour or an entire day. After the emotions subside, you can either choose to have a one-on-oneconversation or carefully write the message you really wish to share. One final thought, don’t be seduced by the instant gratification offered by texting and instant messaging. They are useful, however, it’s well- known that we send error-filled messages all the time, and since these messages are much shorter than emails, the damage caused by the errors can be much larger.
So use these options sparingly. The most important point here is that the very best option isface-to-face communication. Only face-to-face do you hear the words most clearly, see all the non-verbal cues, and have an opportunity in realtime to ask questions and correct course if needed. Every message you share is unique. So be sure to think about how to communicate it.For very important messages, go face-to-face, use the telephone, or video conference options.For messages of modest importance, email might be just right.
For urgent or for very simple messages, texting or using IM might be perfect. In the end, you have many communication options from which to choose. You’ll become an effective communicator when you learn to match the needs of the message with the proper mode of delivery.
Making feedback work
Among the many types of communication one might have at work, few are as important as giving performance related feedback to others. Some professionals will refrain from giving feedback they feel would be useful in order to avoid conflict. Other times, they will correctly choose to deliver a feedback, but their delivery isn’t good. As a result, they unintentionally damage relationships. Good news, it doesn’t have to be that way. The basics of delivering great feedback are well known. If you pay attention to the following approaches, you will dramatically increase the odds that your feedback actually helps others.
First, good feedback is very specific, not general or vague. Never tell someone they can do better without specifying or quantifying exactly how they could perform better. Similarly, if providing critical feedback, don’t simply say the work does not meet your expectations, but instead, clarify in very concrete terms the particular ways the work did not meet expectations.For instance, instead of saying: you can perform better or I expect more, you could say: I think sales could be 10% higher over the next three quarters in both of your territories.
That’s a good example of specificity. Next, good feedback is always delivered positively. You will often need to deliver critical or difficult feedback, but even that type of feedback can be delivered in a positive light. It all depends on how you frame your comments. For example, you can tell someone they failed to meet the production standard by 30%, that’s a negative frame.Or, you can tell them you wish to help them seize the opportunity to reach the standard during the next performance period.
That’s a more useful positive frame. It’s also important you give people the right amount of feedback, because everyone is different and has a different ability to successfully digestfeedback, I want you to use this rule: Only give someone as much feedback as you feel they can honestly take; give too little, you’re not being aggressive enough; give too much, you inadvertently risk offending the person. Based on what you know about them, strive to provide what they need without exceeding what they can take. Finally, great feedback is two-way; not one-way.
It is very important for you to deliver performance feedback you wish to deliver. It is equally true that people often listen and care about feedback to the extent they felt part of a conversation, as opposed to merely receiving comments from you. Creating an active dialogue is always the best choice. After you’ve thought about the content of the feedback you wish to deliver, consider the conditions under which your delivery will be most successful. First, remember that great feedback is delivered in person when possible. The more important or difficult the feedback, the more you should show respect by delivering face-to-face.
Great feedback should also be delivered as quickly as possible, so that it’s relevant. The more time that elapses since the incident, the more fuzzy it becomes in the person’s mind, so deliver feedback as soon as possible. Further, be sure to own any feedback you provide with liberal use of I statements. Such as, I rated you with three because, make sure they know these are your decisions. If you don’t take ownership for your decisions, you come across as weak. It’s also important to find an appropriate place to deliver feedback. Though it is acceptable to praise people publicly, always deliver difficult comments in private, and consider using their office or a neutral location, such as a conference room, as opposed to your office.
Creating Productive Meetings
Knowing when to have a meeting
Meetings are overrated. Now, I’m not talking about the simple one-on-ones we often have. I’m referring to a meeting that involves several people. We often call meetings for a variety of unproductive reasons. First, people often assume that if any decision is to be made, a meetingshould be scheduled. It is only fair to make a decision when we’ve had a great team debate, right? Not really. The first rule of meetings is when in doubt, do not call a meeting. In practice, the opposite is often true. For example, having a meeting on a regularly scheduled basis every week, just for the sake of it, is not a defensible rationale.
To give updates on a project in a meeting with the same people at the same time every week, might be productive and it might be a waste of time. What people fail to realize is that any meeting comes with many difficult overhead costs. To have a meeting, you have to schedule a time, which can be difficult if many people are invited. You also have to spend time planning the meeting. That doesn’t even include the lost productivity that happens during an actual meeting. When a group is in a meeting, there are many people with different agendas, views and concerns.
In some ways, these differences create quality conversations. In other ways, they cost the team extra time and harm productivity. Many organizations are starting to agree. We have to be smarter about when to call meetings. Here are the five major justifications for calling a meeting.First, call a meeting when you must make particularly large or important decisions about which the team cares a lot. In that case, the face-to-face forum allows you to have the discussion you need. Think of it this way, if the team will expect to have a voice in the decision, consider a meeting.
Next, use meetings to make major announcements. When particularly large events have happened, strategic directives have been announced, or big unexpected changes have occurred, consistency in message delivery is vital. For example, maybe the organization has decided to acquire another organization or maybe key government regulations just changed that will affect the team. Delivering messages like these uniformly to everyone at a meeting can be very useful. Another good reason for a meeting is the classic kick-off meeting. For a new or large scale projects, a kick-off meeting provides many benefits.
These include the ability to fully explain the new initiative, to ensure team member role clarity, and to set goals and expectations concerning performance for the new project. A kick-off meeting also allows the opportunity for team members to ask questions, allowing you to establish a two-way dialogue in order to ensure that everyone is on the same page. Another great reason to have a meeting is called a premortem. A premortem is a meeting designed for imagining all of the things that might go wrong once the project goes live.
It’s a type of planning meeting that should result in the identification of a small number of issues that might become challenges or obstacles while working on the project. It’s a great time to proactively and preemptively decide on a strategy for dealing with these predictable bumps in the road. In contrast to a premortem is the postmortem. Following the completion of any large effort, it is useful to call a meeting to gain closure and to ensure learning is captured in a way that benefits future projects. Think through the problems that were solved, the solutions that were used, the resources that were employed, and any new contacts the group made.
Deciding who should attend a meeting
Let me ask you a question, what is the right number of people to have in a meeting? If your goal is to maximize productivity, how many people should be there? This is something of a trick question. There is no actual correct number, but there is one great guideline. Invite the smallest number of people honestly required to get the job done. Remember, adding people to a recurring meeting when necessary is easy. Removing people is next to impossible. In addition, it is smart to try to minimize the levels of hierarchy present in any meeting. Generally, the fewer levels present, the more robust the conversation.
When thinking about inviting someone to a meeting, remember, when in doubt don’t extend the invitation. If you do invite someone, be sure that they are one of the three main types ofpeople who belong at a meeting: the experts, the affected, and the sponsors. The experts are the people with detailed knowledge and the relevant talent related to the topic at hand. The experts provide the fine grained expertise, the in-the-trenches operational knowledge required for success. Next, we have the affected.
Which individuals or groups will be forced to live with the decisions to be made at this meeting? They are the affected and they often make great meeting participants. Having them present helps lay the groundwork for the future implementation of any decisions made during the meeting. We must also consider the sponsors. Most meetings need a sponsor. This is a higher level person who openly supports the project and the work of the team. The more important the project, the more you must clarify sponsorship. Though they only need to occasionally attend meetings, a few appearances will make their presence felt and will signal genuine support.
Thus, everyone involved will understand the importance of the work to be done. Unfortunately, as opposed to only inviting the people we just discussed, people in charge of meetings often invite a lot of people who really do not need to attend. Let’s be clear, there are at least three types of people you want to avoid inviting. Don’t invite too many experts beyond the number you honestly believe are required. If you have 20 engineers with the needed knowledge, you don’t need to invite all of them. Recall that your goal is to invite the fewest needed people.
Also, don’t feel compelled to invite someone simply because they have been associated with the topic in the past. Many people feel that inviting someone like that is a type of courtesy. No!Unless they are the expert or sponsor you currently need, don’t allow your meeting overhead to grow by inviting non-essential personnel. Finally, and this is a big one, you don’t want to invite people you feel are necessary only for political reasons. A political appointee at a meeting is someone you feel you should invite, because if you don’t, you think some other leader might feel shunned or annoyed.
Anytime someone is at the meeting and people wonder why or perceive it as political, the conversations will be stale and the meeting will be unproductive. Nothing will ruin a great collaborative conversation in a meeting faster than the presence of a spy. Meetings don’t have to be bloated and unproductive, not if you focus clearly on inviting only the right people. That’s the experts, the affected, and the sponsors.
Effective meeting rules
Even if you know when to call a meeting and who to invite, that doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily have a productive meeting. Without a clear plan and decent facilitation skills, it is very easy for highly skilled professionals to gather for an hour or more, yet accomplish nothing. Every great meeting operates within certain parameters defined by a few thoughtful mutually agreed upon rules. After initial social interaction cease and the meeting begins, it’s useful to briefly note any relevant meeting rules. There is no one set of perfect meeting rules, however, here are several common ideas for you to consider.
First, make rule number one, the need for all members to arrive on time and prepared.Meetings have a palpable and emotional mood. Nothing spoils the mood in a meeting quicker than participants who show up late and unprepared. Next, clarify the meeting boundaries. Start by stating the goal for the meeting and any general comments about the scope on the topics to be addressed. This rule reduces the likelihood of the dreaded Scope Creep. Scope Creep is the unintended and unexpected shifting of direction into topics not central to the purpose of the meeting.
It is also useful to note important, acceptable and unacceptable behaviors during the meeting.Aside from showing up on time and prepared, here are several common examples. Be critical, but also positive. No interrupting others or no unnecessary use of electronic devices during the meeting. One of the most important meeting rules involves decision-making. Specifically, the group will benefit from agreed upon rules for making decisions. First, let’s mention what not to do. Don’t overuse simple voting techniques.
Voting always has winners and losers. Instead, consider this approach, the single most important method is to strive for consensus through discussion. Sometimes, however, consensus is difficult even in high-performing teams. Ask people whether or not they are meaningfully bought in. For example, a 70% rule; if someone is 70% in agreement, then they agree to support the group’s decision. A rule like this allows us to make progress when consensus is difficult. One last great meeting rule concerns penalties.
If you don’t follow the agreed upon rules, there should be penalties. Why? Because all great teams know that behaviors have consequences. Think about simple ideas such as having to put a dollar in the team’s lunch fund if you arrive late. Your use of penalties can and should be fun, but actually using them is very important if you want a positively shaped meeting behaviors.Meetings don’t have to be too long and unproductive. I want you to develop your own version of the rules we just discussed. When you do, they will help you accomplish more at each and every meeting.
Meeting tools and roles
You can make every meeting better by using the right tools and by understanding which roles members need to fill. Let’s start with meeting tools. The three most important meeting tools are the agenda, the parking lot, and team member homework. Contrary to popular opinion, creating and using an agenda doesn’t have to be complex. However, it must be clear and facilitated correctly. Pay attention to these core elements of meeting agendas. Start by making it known who is formally responsible for creating the agenda. Someone must own the process of assembling and ordering the topics.
Next, realize all great agendas follow a schedule. Before the meeting ever begins, people must know when to submit any issues they wish to be included in the agenda. Make sure the deadline is set several days before the meeting and then make sure the deadline is clearly advertised to all attendees. It’s also important to ensure agenda integrity. You want to stick to the list of issues on the agenda. There might be occasional exceptions; but this is a great rule.
Further, the order of the items should be fairly strictly followed since they were assembled in order of importance. Try not to let personal interests, avoidance of difficult decisions, or overtpolitical moves change the order of the agenda items. The next tool is the parking lot. It helps you avoid Scope Creep, which was mentioned earlier. The parking lot might be a computer file, a white board, or a pad of paper used to document important work-related tangents that pop up during meetings. If someone brings up a topic that needs to be addressed, but not now, given the scope of the current meeting, it goes in the parking lot to be reviewed later.
When used effectively, it’s a great way to capture important ideas and validate member participation while keeping you on track. The final tool is simple, but terribly important, homework. All members must commit to showing up prepared by having completed any assigned reading or analysis. If someone has not done their homework, you guessed it, the team just might want to impose a simple and fun penalty as a reminder. It’s also useful to mention the three most important roles that support productive meetings.
They are, the facilitator, the scribe, and the devil’s advocate. The facilitator is a process observer who watches for adherence to the meeting rules, monitors behaviors, and tries to protect the agenda. The scribe is a note taker, who captures everything relevant at the meeting and later disseminates it electronically to all attendees. Lastly, we have the devil’s advocate. This is the person who questions lazy assumptions and speaks up to ensure that the group properly considers alternative views when making decisions. Here’s a great tip, if needed, formally appoint a devil’s advocate for each meeting.
Using Authority Successfully
In your first few weeks as a leader, you have some seemingly opposing goals. On the one hand, you must establish quality rapport with your team. You have to create open communication and be seen as genuine and authentic. On the other hand, you have to establish that you’re the boss. You have to clarify real goals and expectations. And yes, you need to find a proper way to assert your authority. In reality, they’re not competing goals. Let’s talk about what authority means and then consider a few ways you can assert your authority in a productive and just fashion. Authority is seen as the legitimate right of a person to exercise influence and make decisions.
For example, managers typically have the authority to assign work, hire employees, or order materials and supplies. However, just because you have authority does not mean life is now easy. You need to understand how to use authority effectively. As a new manager, keep in mind these helpful tips. Start small. You have a choice as a new manager when it comes to asserting authority. You can do a cannon ball and jump in the deep end of the pool or you can politely stick your toe in the shallow end. When you look at the team and you view things you wish to change and improve, your best bet is to start with a small and measured target.
Gain success there and then build towards larger targets. Another great strategy is to leverage your authority by co-opting key employees involved in the issue. Co-opting refers to turning a potential detractor into a supporter. If you can predict a person or two who might present a challenge later, talk to them now to gain their input as a means of avoiding future conflict. You might even consider putting them on the team. Finally, a classic way to enhance the effectiveness of your authority is to find at least one pro-employee change you can make in the first few weeks of your tenure.
For example, you might cancel a work attire policy the employees don’t like. Or, you might change a vacation policy in a way they desire. A quick win like these shows employees that you sincerely see their needs. Under these conditions, they are much more likely to support you on other unrelated decisions. Authority is your right to act, but strangely, it’s not always easy to use. Just because you have authority, doesn’t mean they will follow your orders the way you want them to.
Use the tips we’ve discussed to make sure your authority actually supports great team performance.
Looking back to move forward
Typically, new leaders have lots of energy, creativity, and a vision for their new team. However, the degree to which your employees buy in to your vision for moving forward has a lot to do with the respect they feel you have for all that came before you. Thus, in many ways, your ability to move them forward has a lot to do with your ability to look back at where they’ve been. Understand that their current team culture is the result of an evolution over time.Knowing this is important for any new leader, but especially for a new leader who is not a former member of the group.
Before announcing new performance standards, new projects, new long-term goals, do yourself a favor and complete the legwork required to understand the team’s history; how they got where they currently are. You want to be able to adequately describe for yourself, the team’s current culture, be able to understand and appreciate major key employees and leaders from the past, and strive to learn about any key incidents that have occurred over the last few years.Many times, new leaders rush to make changes in order to make their mark. They often view employees as mere human resources, instead of unique individuals who contribute to a unique team culture.
Team Culture generally refers to a shared understanding of how we tend to behave and perform; the normal way the team functions. This existing team culture should shape how you make and execute decisions as the new leader. The current culture evolved, thanks in part to key players, some of whom might still be in the group or elsewhere in the organization. Believe me, certain historically interesting players cast very long shadows that are still around. For example, imagine a past successful leader of the team who was fond of walking around informally on a daily basis to keep in touch with his team.
Someone who made sure to visit all levels of the organization and who knew the names of everyone from the janitor to upper management. This was his way of developing rapport with employees, which has now become part of the culture. You don’t have to emulate every behavior like this, but it might be a mistake not to incorporate some of it into your own leadership style. Aside from key players, there will also be a handful of key incidents that havehad a strong influence on the team’s current culture. For example, these might have included the hiring of a particular person, a project that was an amazing success or failure, or maybe a time when the group merged with another group.
These types of big historical incidents will pop up in people’s thinking and conversations, so you’ll benefit from knowing what they’re talking about. The good news is that learning these types of things is not difficult. In your first days, spend time speaking with your new boss, your new peers, and most importantly, your team, to solicit their understanding of the team’s shared past. As a result, when you begin to press forward with needed changes, you will have a strong appreciation for how to shape and discuss your proposals in a manner that shows respect for the group’s history.
Developing a lieutenant
Every leader needs a great second in command, a lieutenant, a reliable collaborator and go-to person. It’s important that this be an informal understanding not a formal position. Your lieutenant helps you deal with the fact that you can’t be in two places at once. They actually fill several roles. Here are the most important ones. Your lieutenant can stand in for you when needed. As a leader, you’ll learn that your most precious resource is time, because time is so limited, you cannot court every customer or attend every meeting. Your lieutenant can help keep you in the loop by sitting in for you when needed, taking great notes and keeping you connected to a wider array of activities.
Next, lieutenants are often great at initiating followership in tough situations. Sometimes when tough decisions have been made, it’s difficult to mobilize support. Even if you’ve been transparent and collaborative with the team, they won’t love every decision. However, once one person shows support, others are far more likely to follow. In this sense, the lieutenant can become a catalyst for decision support. Lieutenants can also serve as a great conduit for feedback from the team. You might recall from an earlier video, our discussion of the status bubble, that odd interpersonal barrier that surrounds you simply because you’ve assumed a higher level position in the hierarchy.
This information filtered deeply skews the timeliness and quality of the messages you receive. A good lieutenant can bridge that gap to provide you unfiltered feedback about how the team feels regarding the issues of the day. Another great role for the lieutenant is serving as your personal devil’s advocate. In an earlier video, we mentioned the devil’s advocate, that person willing and able to speak up and question the direction of the group’s work. Here, we’re referring to someone willing and able to privately question your assumptions when needed.
Grant your lieutenant this right and they will often increase the quality of your thinking. Finally, realize that your lieutenant may be a huge part of your personal succession plan. Believe it or not, one of the main reasons you might be overlooked for promotion is because you’re great at what you do right now, and the leaders over you are not confident someone else can do as good a job as you have done. Developing a strong lieutenant gives them an option to replace you when you receive a promotion. It is also important to note what a good lieutenant is not.
A lieutenant is not a clone of you. You don’t want someone with identical views and approaches to issues. While some overlap is inevitable, foster their growth as a unique professional. A lieutenant is also not a yes man. The yes man is that person who always without exception, seeks to affirm whatever the boss says and does. A great lieutenant is an honest broker, not simply trying to gain your favor. Finally, a good lieutenant is not an enforcer.
Conclusion
Coping successfully with your transition
Many people have talked about the loneliness of leadership that can’t be avoided, a feeling of being isolated and without support. You can’t agree to be a leader if you’re not willing to sometimes stand alone. Even in the best team environment, there will be times when the direction the team or the organization needs to go involves making decisions which others will not like. Gaining a promotion into leadership is likely to be one of the most challenging life experiences you will ever endure. Studies have shown that achieving that coveted promotion might be second only to going through a marital divorce in terms of the stress experienced.
It sometimes feels like you’re trying to climb a greasy pole and yet no one seems to be helping you. When you are first promoted, it feels momentarily amazing, then, quite suddenly, reality sets in. There is no clear manual on how to start. You are on your own and you might be unsure of what is really expected of you. That’s normal when you find yourself in completely new territory. Please know, there are ways you can mitigate these possibilities and successfully make the transition.
Consider using several of these effective coping strategies. Let’s start with the most important strategy, seeking support from your network. I’m referring to your family, your peers, and maybe an outside professional mentor; but it’s your family that comes first. Whether it is your partner or you parents, let them know about your new responsibilities and the stress that comes with it because the stress will not only affect you it will affect them. Let them know you need their support and understanding. Share your difficulties and concerns with them and embrace that conversation instead of keeping it all bottled up.
Similarly, a small number of peers within the organization will prove valuable as sounding boards. Why? Because they have been exactly where you are now and you have the chance tolearn what they’ve learned about surviving. Finally, further away in the organization or outside the organization altogether, securing a more seasoned mentor to talk with, can provide bothstress relief and needed wisdom. Next, be sure to schedule time away from work. After your promotion, you’ll feel a huge need to work around the clock as you ramp up your leadership learning curve. Resist that feeling.
If you have vacation time scheduled, strive to keep it and while gone, try not to work. Small bits of time away from the office actually supports clear thinking while on the job. You can also battle stress by getting organized. Look at your workspace, your computer, and your files. Take time to organize all of it early in your new role. You want to feel in control, knowing where things are and that everything has its place can provide a much needed sense of calm.